Posts tagged with "Critical Halloween":

The Storefront for Art and Architecture’s annual Critical Halloween is trying to bring a dose of reality to this year's celebration—even if that means celebrating a day that is usually reserved for everything but reality. Perhaps, however, in a time of increasing unreality and (pun intended) dressing up the facts, a sobering celebration is what we need. The theme of this year’s event is REAL and it has a very real focus. Instead of the traditional glitzy party—last year’s hole-themed event was at the Museum of Sex—Storefront is inviting people to come their Soho gallery to have a drink and watch the hotly-contested midterm election results roll in on Tuesday, November 6 (after those who can have voted, of course). In place of tickets for purchase, this year Storefront is asking that attendees become members and is pledging to match the funds raised from the memberships in donations to the Movement Voter Project “in support of issues such as economic fairness, racial justice, gender equality, immigration, LGBTQ advocacy, healthcare access, and environmental sustainability through electoral change.” (Current members can also give with their RSVP and the amount will be matched.)Also, given that this Critical Halloween will be coming nearly a week after the actual day, instead of merely costumes Storefront is inviting ideas for slogans as part of what they’re calling the “Truly Democratic Costume and Campaign Slogan Competition,” which will be judged democratically by attendees rather than by jury as usual. They’re also inviting contributions to the event’s supporting bibliography, REAL REFERENCES.

Where else would cartons of milk, Alice in Wonderland, and Courtney Love come together except at HOLES, this year's Critical Halloween event thrown by the Storefront for Art and Architecture?
The theme invited reflections on the voids in our material and political landscapes, and, of course, a fair range of NSFW puns. After all, holes "question our perceptions of matter and space, constructing, revealing, and inviting us to reflect upon what is real…and what is not." This year, the party's setting at the Museum of Sex provided a more than apt environment for play and disguise, with plenty of room for all the Andy Warhols and Yayoi Kusamas to gallavant alongside the Rhino Booleans and other missing, absent and broken sequences.
But, as always, the question that remains after the candy showers is: who did it best? Scroll through the candidates, click any thumbnail for a closer look, and select an option from the survey below. Then, click “Done” to cast your vote for the “People’s Choice” costume! Voting runs until Friday, November 10th, 11:59 pm EST. (All images are courtesy Storefront for Art and Architecture; they appear in the chronological order that guests registered.)

Each year, the Storefront for Art and Architecture hosts a Halloween Party in New York called "Critical Halloween." Themes have ranged from "Corporate Avant-Garde" to "On Banality, On Metaphor," and the costume contest is the highlight of the night, as party-goers relive the Avant-garde tradition of building fantastic architectural costumes.
This year, the theme as "DEMO-", giving dressers-up an open field for ideas, including democracy, demolition, demographics, and even Nicholas DE MOnchaux or MaDEMOiselle.
With Halloween receding into the past, it's time to vote for your favorite costume. Vote hereand make sure to cast your vote for AN Senior Editor Matt Shaw, pictured below, and his "you figure it out," knowledge-DEMOlishing costume non-sequitur "DEMO? I thought you said DEVO!?"
COSTUME COMPETITION PRIZES
This year the DEMO jury announced the awards at midnight. The jury was comprised of: Keller Easterling, Winka Dubbeldam, Andres Jaque, and Beatrice Galilee. The jury awarded seven prizes in the following categories:
Best Overall Costume
“Building Cuts: The Ghost of Matta”
Steven Holl ArchitectsBest Individual Costume
“Archzilla”
Evalynn Rosado – Weiss/ManfrediBest Duo/Couple Costume
“Permitted and Unpermitted”
Adam Frampton and Karolina Czeczek – ONLY IFBest Group Costume
“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”
Francisco Rocha, Joana Bem-Haja, Joana Torres, and Sandra ShizukaSpecial Prize for Best Demolition Costume
“The Fall of the Berlin Wall”
Leong LeongSpecial Prize for Best Demonstration Costume
“Smoke”
Studio Dror
Special Prize for Best Democracy Costume
“Democracy, The Puppet of Capital”
Miguel de Guzman and Ines Esnal
Vote for our editor Matt Shaw here.

The New York City architecture community was never more colorfully "irrelevant" than last Friday on Halloween as they responded to the Storefront for Art and Architecture themed party, I-RELEVANCE. There were nearly 600 designers and friends in all sorts of passé and outmoded theme costumes.
They competed for three awards: Best Critical Costume, which was won by "Pure Shit" from Robert A.M Stern Architects; Best Group Costume, which went to to "The Money Shot" by SO-IL; and Best Individual Costume went to "Landscape Urbanism" by Matt Choot. One more award, the "People's Choice" award, is still pending an online vote. Head over here to view the costumes and vote for your favorite through November 7 at 5:00p.m. EST.
I served as costume juror along with Roddy Schrock, Campbell Hyers, Sebastian Errazuriz, and Eva Franch. For a look at the colorfully irrelevant costumes photographed by Yuko Torihara, go here or check out Storefront's Facebook page.

Imagine an annual party for architects that has been voted "Ten Hottest Halloween Parties to Die For” in the New York Observer and a “Top Pick Halloween Party” in Time Out New York? It’s the annual Storefront for Art and Architecture Critical Halloween party, taking place this year at 80 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. The party (with a live band and open bar) has always had a theme: Banality, Metaphor, and Corporate Avant-garde in years past. This year's theme dwells on one of the most feared ghosts of art and architectural production: I-Relevance.
There will be awards for Best Group Costume, Best Individual Costume, and Best Critical Costume. And if you want to see what past attendees have conjured in the way of costumes, check out these galleries from the Storefront. All guests who are interested will be invited to also enter an online photo costume competition that will be hosted by Hyperallergic following the event, which will allow the public to vote on our annual "People's Choice Award."
Tickets for Critical Halloween are $50.

"Banality," the theme of Storefront's Critical Halloween costume fundraiser, was manifested in an array of clever--and occasionally perplexing--forms on Saturday evening at the 3-Legged Dog in Manhattan. Blizzard-like conditions did not deter a group of over 250 design-o-philes and at least one (in)famous party crasher from getting decked out in spandex, foam, plush, rubber, tulle, and acres of cardboard. The weather did prevent Liz Diller from arriving to judge the costume contest, but her fearless partner Charles Renfro stepped into the breach, and channeling Damien Hirst in a rhinstone-studded skull mask ("Greed"), took his place alongside judges Wangechi Mutu (embodying Pantone's "Bluebird") and Justin Davidson (dressed as an architecture critic).
Each of the three judges picked a winner, and all the winners happened to come in pairs: "Eyes of the Beholder" (Lisa and Ted Landrum); "1:1 Human Scale, male + female" (Kyle May and Julia van den Hout); and the intriguing "Doll Face" (Mark Kroeckel/moustache and Alison Cutlan). Some architects riffed on their own current work in the costumes (Jing Liu/SO-IL, Meissen exhibition) while others seem to reflect more a state of mind (Bjarke Ingels/BIG, King Kong with colleague Daniel as the Empire State Building; Mitch Joachim/Terreform1 as "Not Bucky").
Now Storefront and Domus are sponsoring an online People's Choice contest. Whose costume gets your vote for most critically banal? See the line-up here.

The closest thing we have to Carnival in the US, Halloween offers a chance for type A-types (yeah, we're looking at you, architects) to blow off some steam. Tomorrow night, Storefront for Art and Architecture's hosts its Critical Halloween costume soiree at the 3-Legged Dog at 80 Greenwich St. The theme? Banality!
Lest you thought this might be an eggheads-'round-the-punchbowl affair, be aware that this party just made New York Observer's list of New York's 10 Hottest Halloween Events to Die For alongside fetes hosted by the likes of model Miranda Kerr and V Magazine.
With a live performance by the Danish band Hess is More, costume prizes bestowed by a jury including architecture critic Justin Davidson of New York Magazine (no banal costume ideas? Go to NY mag's "Approval Matrix" archive and peruse the lower left quadrants), and a stunning array of drink sponsors ponying up not just beer but rum, whiskey, vodka, AND (uh-oh) tequila, we think Storefront's event is going to take banal to new heights (depths?).
Tickets are $100 (which includes a year-long membership to Storefront), and students tickets are $40.
Because Halloween is all about banality--it just takes architects to make a point of it.